2017 KRIHS-WBG Joint Workshop

Theme: Vitalizing Cities with Public Space Ⅱ: Waterfront Development
Date: July 11 (Tue) – 13 (Thu), 2017
Venue: Cosmos Room (2F), The Westin Chosun Hotel, Seoul
            Park Ball Room (5F), Conrad Hotel, Seoul

Global Development Partnership Center(GDPC) at the Korean Research Institute for Human Settlements (KRIHS) held the ‘2017 KRIHS-WBG Joint Workshop’ from June 11 (Tue) to 13 (Thu), 2017 at the Westin Chosun Hotel and the Conrad Seoul Hotel.

The participants were composed of the policy officers and staff from 7 developing countries including Argentina, China, Morocco, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Vietnam and the World Bank Group’s Urbanscapes team. They shared knowledge and experiences on waterfront development and management of Korea and other countries under the theme of ‘Vitalizing Cities with Public Space’ and also discussed challenges and cooperative methods for the future.

In the opening ceremony, Dongju Kim, the President of KRIHS welcomed the workshop participants and encouraged them to share experiences on waterfront development and revitalization and find meaningful insights to solve problems each country has been facing. Also Peter Ellis, the Lead Urban Economist from the World Bank delivered an opening remarks and invited attendees to actively share their experiences regarding the development of public spaces—successes like those seen in Korea, as well as initiatives and challenges.

Jon Kher Kaw, the Senior Urban Specialist from the World Bank addressed a keynote speech and emphasized the importance of waterfront development as a public space in cities, mentioning examples of Choenggyecheon in Seoul and Marina Bay in Singapore. Particularly, he stressed that the role of public spaces as an efficient tool to improve the quality of lives of citizens and low-income groups is important and it is necessary to encourage and support active participation and coordination among multiple stakeholders at each stage.

The discussion session included Korea’s best practices, country presentations and field trips so that they could discuss challenges and opportunities on the issue of waterfront development for the future. This could be considered as a meaningful chance to seek method for application of waterfront and public spaces for participating countries.

Chinese participants from Chongqing highlighted on long-term provision and planning and mentioned the development for regional public space planning. Vietnamese participants were satisfied that they could apply meaningful ideas from the Korea’s landfill example of World Cup Park to Vietnam. In addition, the city of Hai Phong in Vietnam asked for sharing experiences on eco-friendly development process and solution to balance development with environmental preservation in Vietnam. Participants from Zanzibar, Tanzania stressed 3 mission projects, capacity building of the government and think-tank, technological capacity improvement and diversification of financing and investment resources. In addition, Barjor Mehta from the World Bank said that preservation of the Zanzibar city, a UNESCO World Heritage site would be a good example to be applied in other waterfront development cases and the urban resource utilization in waterfront development is very important.

In the closing ceremony, Jinkyu Chung, the Director of GDPC stressed the importance of trilateral cooperation among the World Bank, KRIHS and participating countries to make following projects by sharing experiences and developing policy consultation for customized regional models. Peter Ellis, the Lead Urban Economist from the World Bank also suggested continuous cooperation through following workshops and encouraged to work together in not only the public space field but other common areas of interest in the future. 

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